Köfte Airlines (2016)

Halíl Altındere belongs to a generation of Turkish artists who have substantially shaped the cultural emergence of Turkey in the 1990s. His art explores questions of migration, identity and gender as well as the influence of contemporary Western art movements on the current creative scene of Turkey.

Halil Altındere's latest work – which will be presented as part of Berlin Art Week as well as in the festival "The Aesthetics of Resistance. Peter Weiss 100" and which is a commissioned work by HAU Hebbel am Ufer – shows a group of refugees on top of an airplane. With this work, Altındere is referring to the usually perilous journeys that innumerable refugees are forced to take on everyday due to the politics of the EU and many other states. In his novel “The Aesthetics of Resistance” Peter Weiss sees the history of art as part of an emancipatory process, inextricably connected with social developments. Similarly, Altındere's work (employing various media such as video, sculpture, installation, photography and performance) causes a stir by directly and openly criticising the military establishment and government policy as well as the patriarchal and nationalist structures prevailing in Turkey and many other states.

The open-air version "Köfte Airlines" will be shown all-day outside of HAU2.
The indoor-version will be open inside HAU2 one hour before showtime and one hour after the end of the last performance.

Next to the installation at HAU, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) will show Halil Altındere's exhibition "Space Refugee" from 15.9.-6.11.